In general, a hardware accelerator is a piece of hardware that may be designed to perform a computation in place of software. In some cases, special-purpose hardware may perform computations much faster than software. In cases where performance is crucial, such as security, the cost of dedicated hardware may be worth the improved performance it provides.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.